


rough surf on the coast

by The_Doom_Dahlia



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Butch/Femme, Coping, F/F, F/M, Genderfluid Toni Topaz, Protective Sweet Pea (Riverdale), Sweet E but with lesbians, Sweet Pea Needs A Hug, Trans Girl Betty Cooper, Trans Girl Sweet Pea, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, against me! - Freeform, butch trans lesbian, fangs and sweet pea are best friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-16 04:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17542358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Doom_Dahlia/pseuds/The_Doom_Dahlia
Summary: the life and times of diana 'sweet pea' peabody, proud serpent and the best ass-kicker on either side of the Sweetwater Rivera trans girl Sweet Pea fanfic based on the album 'transgender dysphoria blues' by against me!





	1. transgender dysphoria blues

**Author's Note:**

> my friends and i headcanon that Sweet Pea is a trans girl and a butch lesbian and i've been listening to a lot of against me, so this was born.
> 
> i hope you enjoy
> 
> thank you to my friends ghost, bella, and josh for their beta reading

_“Your tells are so obvious: shoulders too broad for a girl. Keeps you reminded, helps you remember where you come from.”_

One of Sweet Pea’s biggest rules was that no one was allowed to question that she was a girl. Not her family, not the Serpents, and especially no Northsiders. People, once told, could either get the message and use her right pronouns or get their teeth pushed down their throats. There wasn’t a person she was out to that thought of her as anything less than a girl.

Except for herself, sometimes.

“God fucking _dammit._ ” she hissed. Her mother had bought her a dress at a thrift shop in Greendale, a blue one that at least looked her size. So, all alone in her trailer, she’d tried it on. It fit, but it just didn’t look right. Her shoulders felt off, so did her chest. The dress felt like a snake’s skin, shed from another, that she’d slipped on like a costume. There was no one else in the house, but she could feel eyes on her, scrutinizing every inch. Questioning who she was.

Making _her_ question who she was.

“Fuck this.” she huffed, nodding to herself as she shed the dress and got back in an old tank top and jeans. She looked herself over once the Serpent jacket was slipped on. Something inside her stilled and she sighed in relief. “There you are.” she said to herself, patting the side of the mirror and smiling at the girl she saw there. “Got worried for a second.”

The dress found a home with one of Pea’s cousins. Blue wasn’t her color anyway.


	2. true trans soul rebel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sweets gets in a scuffle and gets reminded of who her true friend is

_“All dressed up and nowhere to go, walking the streets all alone. Another night to wish that you could forget, making yourself up as you go along.”_

Even before the goddamn Northsiders had gotten their claws into everything, the Southside hadn’t exactly been the safest place to raise a teenager. That level of danger spiked after she’d come out, she knew that much. But she had her fists and her wits, so she knew she’d be fine whenever she walked back alone from the meetings at night.

Watching the little shits, rejected Serpents, run away from her and her bloody knuckles felt good. The surging pain in her jaw once the adrenaline died down didn’t. Nor did the knowledge that yes, there were people who didn’t take kindly to her being true to herself. It wasn’t a nice fact to face, two days after coming out.

Still, she knew people who cared.

“So, should I still call you Sweet Pea?” Fangs asked, switching out the steak for a bag of frozen corn once the meat had started to thaw. 

“That’s not gonna go away just because I change my birth name, Fangs. You can call me whatever, just so long as it isn’t my old name or ‘bro’ or some shit.”

Fangs nodded. “I know Jughead isn’t dumb enough to try and make you do the Dance after all this time.”

“Even if he tried, I’d break his fucking nose.”

Fangs nodded and the two sat in silence for a while. It was comfortable, the kind of silence that felt like a hug.

“I’m proud of you, y’know.”

Sweet Pea did know, but it still felt good. “Right back at you, buddy.”


	3. unconditional love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sweet pea gets in some trouble and makes friends wth a northsider

_“Don’t worry young suicides, the vultures will pick your bones dry, half-digested and eternal, somewhere lost in the ephemeral. Welcome to the future, an always ice cold nightmare, burnt coffee and percocets, this night too will end.”_

“I thought I told you to fuck off, Jugnuts.”

“I don’t think my name’s ‘Jugnuts’.”

Sweet Pea looked down at the stranger once she’d approached her. For a second, she didn’t register the freckles and crimson hair as familiar. Her head tilted as she stopped leaning on the wall stood at full height, the lights in the alcove outside Weatherbee’s office making her seem even taller. “Who the fuck are you, Northie?”

The redhead blinked in surprise. “Oh! I haven’t actually introduced myself, have I? My name’s Ethel, Ethel Muggs. I’m the one Chad Beaumont was talking to when you sucker punched him. Is that the right phrase, ‘sucker punch’?”

Sweets nodded, putting her hands in her pockets. She had suckerpunched Chad, mostly because Byrdie had gotten about ten unwanted dick pics from the motherfucker and he wouldn’t leave her alone. She just hadn’t noticed Ethel, she guessed. “Yeah, what of it? I don’t need a lecture, I’m already gonna get one from the genius in there.” she jerked her head a little to gesture to Weatherbee’s door.

“Oh no, I just wanted to thank you.”

“ _Thank_ me?” 

“Yeah.” Ethel blushed shyly, her freckles popping a little with the change in skin color. “He was getting a little...handsy. I know that that’s probably not why you did it, but I wanted to thank you anyway.”

Sweet Pea blinked in surprise. “...thanks, North-Ethel. Happy to help.”

“If you ever need help with math or science or anything like that, let me know okay?” she asked. “I have to go to class, but thanks again! I hope Weatherbee goes easy on you.” There was a soft laugh and then she was gone.

She watched Ethel go in silence before laughing a little to herself as Weatherbee poked his head out of his office and called for her to come in.

The five days of detention felt completely worth it, especially when she found herself remembering Ethel’s laugh and spurring herself on with a new mission: to get the redhead’s number.


	4. drinking with the jocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jughead learns, officially, who sweet pea is and she puts her foot down and teaches him a lesson he should have learnt much earlier

_“There will always be a difference between me and you.”_

“Get the **fuck** away from me.” she growled, batting away Jughead’s hand and bundling her bandage tighter around her hand. Another fight had ensued between Ghoulies and Serpents, but this time it had been Jughead and Betty’s fault combined. The two had gone snooping around their territory and some of those shitheads had followed the two back. A brawl had ensued and they’d nearly killed Hot Dog. _Again._ They’d beaten them back with fists, Cheryl unwell and unable to save them with her bow and arrow.

“I just want to help!” He argued, starting to get pissy. He kept reaching for Sweets’ bandage, only for Sweet Pea to keep moving away. It only stopped when an alarm went off on her phone, a blare of electric guitar.

“Dammit.” Sweets huffed, going to her bag by the White Wyrm’s bar and taking out her estrogen pills and a water bottle. She took her pills and downed her water, then turned back to Jughead. Upon seeing his surprise, she scoffed. “What?”

‘Nothing, I just-” he started. “I just didn’t know you were trans.”

The revelation made her scoff. “Look this changes nothing, got it?”

“Betty’s trans too, did you know that? You two could be friends if you told her."

Sweet Pea did know, Betty having approached her after hearing about the Serpent coming out. There were still plenty of differences between them and a sea of bad feelings, but it felt nice to have another trans girl around. Still, it wasn’t Jughead’s place to talk about and she told him so.

“She’s my girlfriend, it’s fine.” he almost scoffed. “I’m just confused is all. You’re so much _different_ than Betty.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You’re a girl but you’re still really,” He paused, trying to put things together in silence. “ _You know._ ”

She knew alright, and her teeth grit hard enough to make her jaw ache. “No. Tell me what you apparently know and I don’t.” she growled. 

The Serpent King shrunk under her steely gaze, but he didn’t completely stop. “You act like _me_.” he blurted out, clearly unable to keep himself from saying it. It didn’t seem like it registered in his head how badly he’d fucked up.

“It’s called being _butch._ , dumbass. Do some goddamn research. Just because I’m butch, that doesn’t make me any less of a girl. Betty isn’t the ‘be-all-end-all’ of trans women, Jughead, and you need to realize that. Educate yourself.” she told him, then grabbed her bag. “I’m going home, talk to your fucking girlfriend about shit and get some education.” she finished.

Hauling her bag over her shoulder and leaving before Jughead could speak, she took out a cigarette and lit it up. It’d be a long walk home tonight. She needed the quiet.


	5. osama bin laden as the crucified christ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sweet pea purges some demons with fire

_“You’re gonna hang like Benito from the Esso rafters, hang like Clara with her skull caved in, hang like the cross around my neck, you’re gonna hang.”_

Watching Penny getting her tattoo sliced off had made her stomach churn, so as soon as it was over Sweet Pea had gone home. Fangs and Toni had come along at her request, Toni still thriving from the adrenaline of having come out themselves. Having to explain what genderfluidity meant to some of the older Serpents hadn’t been fun, but that hadn’t dampered their joy. The three had ended up in Sweet Pea’s backyard, circling a burning makeshift fire pit.

“You sure you wanna do this, Sweets?” Toni asked, shifting around the pile of photos in their arms and looking at her with the barest hint of anxiety. “I mean, this is a lot of stuff to burn.”

Sweet Pea plucked a photo from the pile and looked it over. There she was, five years old, gap-toothed and grinning beside her cousin. The Peabodys, bright-eyed and too clever and hot-headed for their own good. In a way, she missed it. But something else overtook that sensation.

The little boy in the photo was a stranger. She’d exorcised him so long ago, and these were the last physical vestiges of him. She’d clung to them out of sentimentality for the old days, when Penny had taught her about justice and fighting in the backyard - first with stick swords and then with fists. But Penny was gone, Jughead had gotten his pound of flesh, and now the sentiment was tinged with acid and disappointment. The perfect firestarters.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

The fire burnt for hours. As she went to sleep that night, Toni and Fangs dozing on her floor like they were just having a sleepover, she wondered if Penny could see the fire from wherever she’d run to. Wondered how long it would be before Penny herself burned.


	6. fuckmylife666

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sweets and ethel cuddle and talk about sweet pea transitioning

_“I don’t have the heart to match the one pricked into your finger. No more troubled sleep, there’s a brave new world raging inside of me.”_

“You’re a better person than I am, you know that right?”

Ethel ran a hand through her hair, smiling down at her gently and sadly as the party they’d gone to died all around them. They’d been together for six months now, and she was getting used to ramblings like this when Sweet Pea was drunk. She didn’t like it, but she was getting used to it. “You’re wrong, you know that right?”

“Whatever you say.” Sweet Pea laughed. She paused, swirling around her beer bottle before taking another swig. “I’m gonna be such a hot girl.”

“You already are, Sweet Pea.”

“I know but like,” She paused, her alcohol-soaked mind trying to string words together. “When I get surgeries and stuff. I wanna get surgeries.” she told her. “Did I already tell you that?”

“Once or twice.”

She nodded, taking a final drink before getting quiet again. This silence was more pensive, more anxious than the one before. Finally she took the hand that was in her hair between her own, tugged at it so she could look at it, and squeezed it between both hands. She was gentle now, lamb-like and afraid. “Ethel?”

“Yes?”

“Me getting surgery isn’t gonna change anything, right? You’ll still be here?”

Something in Ethel’s heart broke a little, and she pressed her lips to Sweet Pea’s forehead. She began to say her nickname, but figured it was a good time to use her real name. “Diana.” she murmured, pulling her hand away so she could pull her girlfriend in close. “I promise, nothing you do to become the lady you are will change anything about how much I love you. No matter what. Okay?”

Sweet Pea nodded, satisfied, and nudged her head into the crook of Ethel’s neck. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The party slowly ended around them and they, statue-like in motion and absorbed in each other, didn’t even notice.


End file.
